General Chat

Where has your "vegetarian week" thread gone?

I tried searching, using "vegetarian" & "quorn"....... got pages and pages of "don't post about the same person twice"....... and a load of other stuff........ arggggh.

Just wanted to let you know I bought some quorn this morning, and it's simmering right now.

I'll let you know later how it "went down" with Himself.

:-D

It doesn't need much simmering, not as much as meat, saves fuel as well!

There was another smart- arse comment and I pulled, just like I said I would.

He saw it in the shopping bags, made some "smart-arse" comments....... which I'm sure you've heard before :-D

The recommendations for cooking on the package didn't sound tempting at all, a bit bland. I chopped up an onion, added the quorn, about 6 sliced mushrooms, a jar of tomato pasta sauce, and lots of fresh & dried oregano & black pepper. Had it with spaghetti.

Was OK, but the plain tomato sauce was a mistake, it was too sweet. Himself ate it without too many complaints.

I'll experiment with it, see if I can make a "meatloaf". I can't see OH or myself ever becoming vegetarian, but having at least one day a week without meat can only be good for us.

When I was going through the checkout, the girl (I chat with her every time I'm at the supermarket) whispered to me that the local pharmacy has quorn in bulk, and it's cheaper :-D I hope her supervisor didn't hear lol

On the thread I pulled due to smart-arse comments I said that there shoud always be a squirt of tomato ketchup in the mince. It does somehow bring it to life.

I would start by frying onions because I start everything by frying onions (best to avoid my rice puddings) , toss a bit of seasoned flour and maybe a green Oxoor two round the mince before I put it in the pan to brown with the onions.

If it is to be a cottage pie or a pie or something like that I will tip in most of a can of cheap beer, the rest goes in the cook because cooking is hot work but stock is just as good but doesn't have the perks!

If it is for pasta it will be tinned tomatoes and maybe a drop of wine and garlic, plus the green Oxo.

There must always be the squirt of ketchup, about a tablespoonfulish, usually some soy sauce, Worcester sauce, Marmite.

Then you can indulge yourself with whatever you put in it, mushrooms, frozen peas, sweetcorn, carrots, fill your boots!

You can't buy Quorn in bulk in Britain but you might be able to in Oz soit might be soya mince she was talking about.

If it is soya, don't touch it because it tastes as bad going in as it does coming out!

Ketchup has become one of my staple ingredients. It does add a certain 'rounding' to the dish without tasting like ketchup.

Scozz, cauli cheese and a jacket spud is 'vegetarian' but not too alien for a meat eater.

Sharron, I agree with you about soya though I haven't tried it as 'afters'. It puts me in mind of cardboard, with the best will in the world and copious seasoning it is still like soggy cardboard.

I don't think it matter what you do to soya, it still has a tang which repeats on you.

In the past I have put mustard in the recipe with it because I thought it masked the tang but I don't know if it really did.

Errrk, I don't like soya at all.

I have to be very careful with ketchup/tomato sauce...... there's only one brand in Oz that I can eat; the others use a preservative I'm allergic to.

I usually make my own ketchup, I have one bottle left........ I keep waiting for roma tomatoes to come down in price :-D

Island......... if I gave my LARGE husband a potato & cauli cheese for dinner he'd starve......... he'd wonder where the roast was....... and the other vegies lol

What's the cost of quorn in UK? The 300gram pack I bought was $6Aus

Naturally, I buy it when it is on offer but probably wouldn't pay more than about £1.85 for a 300g bag.

I do make tomato ketchup but don't find it a cheap option and it doesn't taste much different from Heinz which isn't supposed to have anything added to it.

This village used to be full of smallholdings growing tomatoes (Land Settlement Association) but now there are very few growers about so there is no huge surplus of reject tomatoes any more.

We are going to grow a few extra toms this year for green ones because the giant jar of mincemeat is quickly going down so we might well have enough to make some ketchup.